


My body is your garden, and you may grow what you please

by Baryshnikov



Series: Where Monsters lie [12]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Betrayal, Blood, Flowers, Garden metaphors, Implied/Referenced Cheating, Language of Flowers, M/M, Mutual murder, POV Second Person, Stabbing, Stream of Consciousness, True Love, Unhealthy Relationships
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-27
Updated: 2019-02-27
Packaged: 2019-11-06 07:03:54
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,579
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17935100
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Baryshnikov/pseuds/Baryshnikov
Summary: That is why youhaveto kill him now.





	My body is your garden, and you may grow what you please

**Author's Note:**

> I've been having an Othello phase recently, and if you were ever forced to study it for as long as I was, you'll know Iago has a thing for garden metaphors, so now I have a thing for garden metaphors, so I had to try writing it and I hope it isn't too bad.
> 
> From Harry's perspective.

You _wish_ that you didn’t have to kill him. 

You know he is going to kill you. You could feel it in your bones, the way he looks at you, the way he smiles, all teeth and no eyes. He is being nice to you. Touching you like he hasn’t done for a long time, holding your shoulders and murmuring sweet things in your ear. He says he will plant forget-me-nots in your lungs, as though you are leaving, and he says, that he will grow zinnia, to _remind him of absent friends_. You should be afraid. You aren’t. He was always going to kill you, that was a given from the first day you met. Somehow you both knew it wasn’t possible for both of you to grow in this world, to spread your roots amongst the masses could only be done without competition. Really, you are surprised that it took him this long to want you dead. If you didn’t know better, you’d say he had fallen in love with you, a fraction of the amount that you had fallen for him. But you do know him, and he is incapable of love that does not benefit him. You are sure there is a proper word to describe what he is, but you like parasite. He sucks the life out of other people, attaches himself to them and then drops them when he’s bored. That’s what going to happen to you. Though you know, he isn’t bored of you yet, so there is only one other possibility in your mind. He is scared of you. Scared of what you could do. Perhaps he has tasted the pollen of the yellow carnations of disdain that sit on your tongue. Perhaps he does not like the flavour of disloyalty. 

That is why you _have_ to kill him now. 

He would never expect it. He might see and hear and taste your disgust, but he would never think that you’d kill him. He thinks you are so innocent, that you couldn’t possibly work out what he was planning. But what he doesn’t understand is, how could you possibly still be a daisy when you have had him inside your head for so long? You can’t simply. He has left his mark, a long red gash, you doubt will ever heal. From it spews something as gorgeous as it is horrible. Thick and dark it pollutes your head, fills it with things you don’t like to think about, because if you do, you’ll never stop. You hate that gash because you don’t remember him making it, and he didn’t, not in one day. He spent years scratching at the edge of your skull, years gouging deeper into the depths of the dark, years waiting to hook his nails around something monstrous, and pull it to the surface. He poisoned your garden. Made your rivers run black and your petals shrivel. He was the mould that cut right to the very centre of who you were, twisted you out of shape, and turned you into something you don’t really recognise anymore, and you hate him for it. Hate him for turning you into something as dark and cold and bitter as him. 

That is why you _have_ to kill him now. 

That wasn’t always what you thought though. Once you thought he was dazzling, and that was the truth. So, dazzling that you could not see what he _really_ was. He cultivated his garden so expertly, planted pansies for thoughtfulness, and lily-of-the-valley for sweetness. He sowed what he thought people would like to see, nurtured pretty things, vulnerable flowers that made people’s hearts melt. Exposed the fragility of his soul through thousands of anemones, at least, that what it looked like he was doing, simply showing everyone what they wanted to see. Showing them the glorious purple crocuses that grew behind his eyes and the red poppies that twirled themselves around his collarbones, and up his neck. He is so beautiful. A true garden of Eden, paradise on earth, the eighth wonder of the world. His body is a garden created by the gods, so striking it is almost sacred. You had just wanted to lie in it. Feel the petals on your face and between your fingers, and hear his words, always calming, careful words that made you feel safe, made you trust him when perhaps you shouldn’t have. You weren’t the only fool though. Everyone loved him. All of them wanted a piece of his body, to touch his fingers and take a single petal to remember him by. He was a divine gift, and just like everyone else, you fell under his spell. 

That is why you _have_ to kill him now. 

You should have known from the rhododendrons that grow in his heart, they were a warning, you should have known they were poisonous in large doses, and that they only grow in acidic soil. He is acidic, or, at least, he could be. Sharp and bitter right to his bones, you bet even the marrow would be sour to taste, but you’d never guess by looking at him. Not even by talking to him for a while would you understand that there was something deeply wrong with him. To everyone, he was perfect. The epitome of human achievement: handsome, clever, polite; vulnerable and honest and smothered with sacrificial hyssop. But then he would smile, and it was so hollow. His mouth filled with the ambitions of pink hollyhock, so thick it clogged his throat and stained everything he said. All you had to do was listen, and you have seen his kindness and his altruism are not what they appeared. He was rotten fruit. But no one else sees, and you don’t understand how they can’t, how they can sit in blissful ignorance of the monster they drink tea with. But they do. They do not listen to your concerns, they never listen, and that is why you have to do it. 

That is why you _have_ to kill him now. 

He is nothing but a rot. A creature that hides behind a screen of honeysuckle and white clover, pretends that he is beautiful when really, he is decomposing, putrefying behind his elegant façade. You have watched the decay spread over other people’s gardens. He kills them without them even realising it. He stays with them and smiles, holds their hands and tells them everything will be all right, when all the while, it is he that is slowly draining their lives away. Spreading like a plague of locus, eating them alive because to him, they are nothing. They are just infinitesimal specks, unimportant, inconsequential compared to himself. You admired that in him once, that confidence, that conviction for his ideas, the certainty that he, and he alone, was right. It was hypnotic, powerful, intoxicating like the strongest perfume, a subtle display of what he could achieve. But you didn’t and still, you don’t, agree with his methods. It is shocking what he does, though it might, when you’re tired and bored, be beautiful, but it is wrong. You know it is. People are not commodities. People are not just their gardens. People have a wonder in them, and a splendour, a respect and a grace that he doesn’t see. To him, they are in the way, nothing more than weeds that stop him from achieving his transcendent dreams. 

That is why you _have_ to kill him now. 

You have seen that he has no qualms about infecting them with a contagion. Killing them with compliments and smiles and polite little words, that you have come to despise because he used them on you first. He grew you tulips, and violets; pulled them from his body and placed them between your lips. He lay in bed with you, hands hooked around your fingers, smiling, and you could almost see the morning glories that grew in his lungs. He said he loved you, said that you were the only one who could ever understand him. Perhaps he was right. You are certain he was. But just because you understand him, it does not mean that you like him. Not anymore. Not since he grew yarrow and heliotrope for someone else, told _them_ that he loved them. Abraxas’ body adorned with cornflowers, was so eager to be watered with his poison. It was scandalous. Disgusting. Appalling. It made you wonder if that was what _you_ looked like once, so needy and weak, putty in his careful hands. That’s not you anymore. Your garden has changed since then. Where once you grew undying devotion through the lilacs, and complimented their purple glow with the sweet love of white jasmine, now you grow hardier flowers, peonies and tansy. You wonder if he knows what those tiny yellow flowers mean. _I declare war on you_. It is what you say to yourself in the mirror as you wait for him to come back to you, a new row of honest chrysanthemums weaving themselves through his ribcage, as though he thinks you won’t see the blue cornflower petals strewn in his stomach. 

That is why you _have_ to kill him now. 

Somewhere in your heart, you understand that doing this means you’ll be no better than him, but at least you’ll be rid of him. Everyone will be rid of him; no longer can he drip poison from his pretty tongue and contaminate the air they all breathe. You also know, somewhere in your heart, that you don’t want to do it. You know if the world were different, you would keep him by your side, keep his pretty face ever so close. Keep his garden beautiful enough to compliment your own. But the world isn’t different, and there is no place for monsters like him. Monsters like you. You stare in the mirror, trying to find your true self amongst all the weeds he planted, all his goldenrod encouragement blocks your view, and you briefly wonder whether this was what he always wanted. You to do something terrible. Perhaps it was. But it is worth it if he will die. 

That is why you _have_ to kill him now. 

You do what he wants, sit with him. Your head initially on his shoulder before he turns to face you. He gives you a lily, and you give him a hydrangea. He wishes to restore you to a time before he met you, when you were innocent of the monsters like him, that lurked in the corners. You want to say your sorry for what you’re going to do. He won’t understand, but that doesn’t bother you, not anymore. His hand on your cheek feels so intimate, and you have no regrets about leaning into his touch, it will be the last time you ever feel the warmth of his hands. The last time that you can touch him, and almost tell him that you really are sorry for what you’re going to do. You find yourself touching his cheek, holding him closer than you should, intoxicating yourself with the smell of his flowers because then you don’t have to remember that you are going to kill them all. You don’t how long the two of you stayed like that, just staring into each other’s eyes, trying to find a substance in the gloom. If you were feeling cruel, you would have gouged out those eyes, found the richness beneath them, the glory in the dark, but you can’t bring yourself to ruin him any more than you have to. You don’t look down when you feel something sharp pressing against your heart, what would be the point? Instead, you swallow down your apprehensions of death and force yourself forward. The fact he smiles is almost heartbreaking, the fact he thinks he’s won. He hasn’t. He is bleeding like you, dark red blood instilled with the scent of every flower in his body, and pain of every sin he has ever committed. 

That is why you _have_ to kill him now. 

The blood, blossoms over his shirt, like a rhododendron, and he genuinely looks surprised for a second. Staggered that you would do such a thing. He laughs at you then. He says your garden is covered in blood, but so is his. He smiles and says he’s different, that his garden has always been steeped in this red; when this is the first time your daisies have been anything but white. He laughs more when he says that you’re not so innocent anymore. That he didn’t even need to raise a finger to get you to come to around to his perspective. You stab him again then, straight through his rhododendron heart, and you enjoy it. You enjoy planting your basil in his blood-soaked garden, showing him how much you hate him and everything he does because you do. He makes you so angry because, because, if he was _different_ , then you could have nurtured the most beautiful garden the world had ever seen. But he isn’t different, he is _him_ in all his horrific glory. He is a creature that you love and that you loathe. A poison, a miasma, a disease that spreads in plain sight. A monster that veiled himself in black-eyed Susan and red roses, he paraded in that solemn crown of justice and love, laughing like a king, whilst all the time plotting against every single one of his devotees. So, you do enjoy it, and you think a part of him enjoys killing you too. Though you think he enjoys seeing what you’ve become a little more, what depths that you have gone to, in order to be rid of him. You think he likes how deep you had to gouge to get his rot out of you, though you can still feel it deep within your stomach, buried in the daffodils where no one would think to look.  
In your final moments, you stare at each other. You just admire his perfect face, his perfect mouth, his perfect eyes, get lost in them because there is nothing else to see anymore. You have condemned the both of you to die together, forever entwined like ivy around an oak tree. You pull him closer then, if only to force your knife in deeper, he does the same and your choke on the pain that you try and convince yourself is worth it. Your head is spinning and there is a throbbing the likes of which you have never felt before, and you never thought that dying would be this painful. But he is there, bloodied hands holding your cheeks, staining red fingerprints into your skin. He soothes you with his gentle words, lets you hold him with your red-stained hands. He strokes your hair and murmurs that he won’t leave you to die alone. So you don’t stop him when he presses his lips to yours. There is still poison in his mouth, and acid on his tongue, but it tastes sweeter than it ever has done before. He kisses you slowly, and painfully, filling your mouth with all his transgressions, and infecting your very heart, because he knows that you love him, and now you know that he loves you too. You die with camellias growing from your lips, and regret hanging heavy in your heart. 

You _wish_ that you didn’t have to kill him.

**Author's Note:**

> Sorry if this is a little too similar to my last fic, I don't think I did mutual murder (is there a better name for that?) justice last time, and I just love flowers.


End file.
